Why Black History Month is needed
We’ll know Black History Month has been successful when we no longer need a Black History Month. That will come when the rich tapestry of black history is woven seamlessly into the fabric of the nation’s life, when a Benjamin Banneker is as familiar to schoolchildren as a Benjamin Franklin.
We’re not there yet.
We were even less there a century ago, when educator and historian Carter G. Woodson founded the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History. Woodson and his association are widely credited with pushing the country to set aside a week to explore the contributions of black Americans.
Woodson realized his dream in 1926, and reportedly choose February for the observance because two important figures were born that month: Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass.
The week became a month 50 years later.
This year, Black History Month comes amidst unwelcome indications that racism continues to gnaw at the nation’s innards.
It comes at a time when former Senate majority leader Trent Lott felt safe enough in his America to laud a Southern legend who cut his political teeth by supporting segregation, and the matter of affirmative action is once again before the U.S. Supreme Court.
It comes at a time when residents of Georgia are fighting for the right to wave a flag that glorifies all that was wrong with the “Old South.”
On the local level, a march is planned Feb. 15 by demonstrators who perceive that race played a role in the police shooting death of a 12-year-old boy on Christmas Eve.
But for all the despair, there is hope. Schools across the country have incorporated African-American studies into the curriculum, and children routinely learn of the contributions of one of the country’s largest minorities. Many years ago, black historian John Henrik Clarke said to control a people, you must first control what they think about themselves and through what lens they view their culture and history.
When your conqueror manages to make you ashamed of that culture, he doesn’t have to resort to chains or prison walls to hold you, Clarke taught.
Black History Month comes every year to break through the chains and open the prison doors. It comes to elevate blacks and, by extension, the people among whom they live.
Twenty, 30 or 50 years down the road, we may not need these four weeks. For now, we are truly grateful they exist.
And Benjamin Banneker? With luck, your schoolchild can tell you he is identified as the first black American inventor. Check him out.